Sundown towns, sometimes known as sunset towns or gray towns, are all-white municipalities or neighborhoods in the United States that practice a form of segregation by enforcing restrictions excluding people of other races via some combination of discriminatory local laws, intimidation, and violence. The term came from signs that were posted stating that people of color had to leave the town by sundown.[1] Since the Supreme Court's 1917 ruling in Buchanan v. Warley, racial discrimination in housing sales has been illegal, but lingering racial prejudice against non-white residents remains in certain communities to this day.[2]

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Some communities placed at their borders signs with statements similar to the one posted in Hawthorne, California, in the 1930s, which read: "Nigger, Don't Let The Sun Set On YOU In Hawthorne".[3]James W. Loewen, the Washington, D.C.-based author, told The Washington Post in 2006 he found reports of thousands of such places, and sometimes, the sign makers tried to get clever. Some came in a series, like the old Burma-Shave signs, saying: " . . . If You Can Read . . . You'd Better Run . . . If You Can't Read . . . You'd Better Run Anyway."[4]

During the nadir of American race relations post Civil War, about 1890-1940, many thousands of towns became sundown towns. African-Americans, who had lived predominantly in rural areas in the northern states, moved to major urban centers that were not sundown towns. Towns in the southern states, where many of the workers were African-Americans, were less often sundown towns.[5]

In some cases, the exclusion was official town policy or was promulgated by the community's real estate agents via exclusionary covenants governing who could buy or rent property. In others, the policy was enforced through intimidation. This intimidation could occur in a number of ways, including harassment by law enforcement officers.[6]

Since the Civil Rights Movement of the 1950s and 1960s, and especially since the Civil Rights Act of 1968 prohibited racial discrimination concerning the sale, rental, and financing of housing, the number of sundown towns has decreased. However, as sociologist James W. Loewen writes in his book on the subject, Sundown Towns: A Hidden Dimension of American Racism (2005), it is impossible to precisely count the number of sundown towns at any given time, because most towns have not kept records of the ordinances or signs that marked the town's sundown status. He further notes that hundreds of cities across America have been sundown towns at some point in their history.[7]

Additionally, Loewen notes that sundown status meant more than just that African-Americans were unable to live in these towns. Essentially any African-Americans (or sometimes other ethnic groups) who entered or were found in sundown towns after sunset were subject to harassment, threats, and violent acts—up to and including lynching.[7]

For example, the city of Goshen, Indiana was a sundown town for much of its history, forbidding African Americans from living in, or entering, the town, often under threat of violence. In March 2015, the city acknowledged this part of its past, apologizing and saying that it no longer condones such behavior.[8][9]

African-Americans were not the only people of color driven out of some towns where they lived. One example, according to Loewen, is that in 1870, Chinese people made up one-third of Idaho's population. Following a wave of violence and an 1886 anti-Chinese convention in Boise, almost none remained by 1910.[7]:51 In another example, the town of Gardnerville, Nevada is said to have blown a whistle at 6 p.m. daily alerting Native Americans to leave by sundown.[7]:23 Three additional examples of the numerous road signs documented during the first half of the 20th century include:[4]

Described by former NAACP President Julian Bond as "One of the survival tools of segregated life",[11]The Negro Motorist Green Book (at times titled The Negro Traveler's Green Book or The Negro Motorist Green-Book, and commonly referred to simply as the "Green Book") was an annual, segregation-era guidebook published by Hackensack, New Jersey letter carrier turned New York travel agent Victor H. Green, for African-American motorists.[11] It was published in the United States from 1936 to 1966, during the Jim Crow era, when discrimination against non-whites was widespread.[12] Road trips for African-Americans were fraught with inconveniences and dangers because of racial segregation, racial profiling by police, the phenomenon of travelers just "disappearing", and the existence of numerous sundown towns. According to author Kate Kelly, "there were at least 10,000 'sundown towns' in the United States as late as the 1960s; in a 'sundown town' nonwhites had to leave the city limits by dusk, or they could be picked up by the police or worse. These towns were not limited to the South—they ranged from Levittown, New York, to Glendale, California, and included the majority of municipalities in Illinois."[11]

Containment (TV series), season 1, episode 12: Micheline explains to her white granddaughter, whose boyfriend is black, that she grew up in a sundown town and had to leave to protect the safety of her beau (Bert), who was black, and her daughter Leanne, who was beaten up even though Bert left town before sundown

^Harte, Tricia (11 March 2015). "'Sundown Town' recognizes Goshen's past racial problems". WNDU Channel 16. Gray Television, Inc. Retrieved 23 June 2015. Goshen, the seat of Elkhart County, is attempting to take steps to formally recognize racial discrimination in its past, and acknowledge what the city will continue to do to bolster diversity. Tuesday, March 10, the city’s Community Relations Commission unanimously passed a resolution acknowledging the 'racially exclusionary past of Goshen, Indiana, as a ‘Sundown Town.’'